I swear, when I grow up, I won't just buy you a rose
by legallyblained
Summary: I listened to The Gambler by Fun. too much. Sorry.


"Can I help you, sir?"

Blaine spins around, startled, to face the girl behind the counter.

"Sorry?"

"It's just- you've been staring at everything for half an hour. Is there anything you're looking for?"

"Oh, right, right. Yeah. Um. I kind of want everything."

She narrows her eyes for a moment.

"Is this a joke? Are you gonna put in some ridiculous order and not pay so I get fired?"

She immediately feels terrible, as the man looks like she's just slapped him in the face.

"What? Gosh, no! Do people do that? I'm so sorry! I just- it's for my boyfriend. He loves flowers, and I have this whole thing planned- so I kind of want all the flowers."

Her heart aches a little inside her chest. He looks so damn earnest and excited and nervous, it's all she can do not to leap over the counter and hug him. She does the next best thing. She gets just as excited as he is.

"Okay, so when do you need them? And is there a particular colour palette you were going for, or just a whole rainbow, with, like, everything?"

He beams and they talk for ages – Mondays are always slow – and he insists that she call him Blaine and she tells him her name is Lindsay even though it's on her badge and he says he'd like yellow and pink to stand out, but a bit of everything, and how they've been together since high school, how they met through glee club and they've grown up singing with each other, how he almost lost him once and he still can't believe he's lucky enough to be with him again but he's never going to let him go, and how they've only just moved into their own place and it's still pretty much empty and Blaine wants to fill it up with flowers. He laughs about how he can't really afford to do this, but he knows it'll be worth it for the look on Kurt's face.

She has to bite her lip to stop from squealing, and promises to give him a good deal. She says it's because they're grateful for the business, but he has a feeling it's because she liked his story. He thanks her profusely, and books a delivery slot for a few days later.

Blaine opens the door as soon as he hears the van pull up, and waves to Lindsay. Her mother, driving the van, elbows her in the ribs when she blushes.

"Shut _up_," she hisses, "he's gay."

"Doesn't mean he can't be cute. Come on, maybe he's got a straight brother."

"_Mom_!"

She grins and swings the van door open, slipping down from the seat and holding her hand out to Blaine.

"Trish. I hear you're paying for my daughter's education."

"Blaine, and you're welcome. Hey, Lindsay."

"Hi, Blaine," she mumbles, cheeks burning. "You might have to give us a hand with this delivery, or it could take hours."

"But at least I'd get to spend those hours in the company of two delightful young ladies," he says with a wink, but he jogs to the back of the van to help anyway. As soon as it's open and he sees the vast array of flowers stacked in there, his eyes light up. "Oh my- it's perfect. This is so perfect. Thank you so much-"

"Woah there, honey," Trish interrupts, "we need to see if they'll fit in the apartment first."

He giggles and bumps his hip into Lindsay's with a grin.

"Let's see what we can do then, huh?"

It's a squeeze. The scent makes them all a little dizzy. The apartment isn't big, but it's bigger than the store, and they've ordered heaps of extra flowers and spent two days arranging them into perfect little bouquets. They use everything available to them – the tiny dining table, the dozens of cardboard boxes that have yet to be unpacked (apart from the one Blaine rushes into the bedroom with a blush and a mutter of 'nope, you don't need to see this', earning a cackle from Trish), the counters and windowsills, and eventually they just have to put the baskets and bunches all over the floor. It's literally a rainbow of colours, but as requested there are more pink and yellow than anything else. Lindsay excitedly explains the importance of the pink and yellow to her mother, how Kurt gave Blaine pink and yellow roses in high school, and Blaine blushes again. Carnations and roses and lilies and a tonne that Blaine can't even name, in every corner, on every surface of the tiny apartment. He asks if it's too Gatsby-ish, but Trish assures him it's way less stylish and way more cute.

Blaine starts to bounce a little as an hour passes, rearranging the odd flower, getting more nervous as it gets closer to Kurt's home time.

"Is that all of them?"

"Yeah, almost, just-" Lindsay pulls on last bunch out of the passenger seat, "I thought these could be the kind of, uh, cherry on top."

It's not the biggest bouquet there by far, but it makes his face crack into an even wider grin than before. It's just like the one Kurt presented him with in his junior year, but with a sprinkling of daisies and baby's breath, tied beautifully with pink and yellow ribbons.

"Did you do this?"

"No."

"Yes," Trish says. "Those were all her doing. They're gorgeous, sweetheart, you should be proud."

Lindsay wants the ground to swallow her until Blaine takes them and hugs her, kissing her on the cheek.

"They're beautiful. Thank you so much."

She needs a second to get her breath back, but when she does she smiles giddily at Blaine.

"Kurt's really lucky. He'll love all of this, I know he will."

There are gushing 'thank you's and 'you're welcome's and a tearful hug (Blaine's tears) and they're gone just in time for Kurt to get home. They wait in the van for a while, pretending to sort out cash and the GPS, actually just trying to spot Kurt walking back so they could maybe see his reaction.

"I bet Kurt's really nice. He better be. I hope he does nice stuff for Blaine too. He deserves to have someone do nice things for him too. He's so sweet."

"Uh-huh," Trish nods, resisting the urge to tease her daughter about her painfully obvious crush. She grabs Lindsay's hand when she spots someone walking towards the van. Lindsay has an instinctive urge to hide, but remembers they're not actually doing anything wrong. Just a tiny bit of spying. It's fine.

"What?"

"It's him! That must be Kurt!"

"How do you know?"

"Look in his hand, Linds."

She spots a bunch of pink and yellow flowers, and a stupid excited grin on his face just like Blaine's.

"Oh. Probably him."

They watch as the door opens before he can get his key in the lock. Blaine kisses him before he can even say anything, but they both pull away and produce a pink and yellow bouquet from behind their backs. They laugh and smile and kiss again, then swap the flowers over, still laughing. Kurt rolls his eyes, but Blaine talks a little, obviously trying to explain that that's not all.

"No, Kurt, just- oh God, just come in, please?"

"Blaine Anderson, what are you hiding-"

They fumble for a second while Blaine puts his hands over Kurt's eyes.

"Let's go and look."

"What? Mom, we can't-"

"They'll never know. Come on, I want to see his face, then we'll leave, I swear."

Lindsay wants to argue, but her mother's already out and, yeah, okay, she kind of wants to see too. They're poking their heads out from behind a car to look in the window when Blaine pulls his hands away.

Kurt doesn't say anything for a minute. He slowly raises a hand and uses it to cover his mouth as it falls open. He reaches blindly for Blaine's hand, and Blaine's ready to hold his back. He spins around, trying to take it all in, and all he can do is stare. He looks back at Blaine, shaking his head, and he immediately lifts him off the ground, kissing his ear, his cheek, his hair, whatever he can reach, before putting him down and kissing him properly.

"You- I can't- Blaine, I… God."

"You like it?"

"I love it, I love it so much, I just- ugh. This is so unfair."

"Good. I know it's stupid, but I- wait, what?"

"You just. You had to one-up me. I get you one little bunch and you-"

"No, Kurt, you know I don't care-"

"Now, what can I do to beat this?"

"Honey, you don't have to-"

Kurt lowers himself to the ground, onto one knee.

There's a strange noise outside, but neither of them turns to look.

"Lindsay, they'll hear! You're the worst spy ever! I bet James Bond never screamed at anyone during a stakeout."

"Shhhhh!"

They both keep staring into the window, at Kurt pulling a ring from his pocket and Blaine starting to cry. Blaine's just shaking his head, smiling, wiping tears from his cheek with one hand and clinging to Kurt with the other.

"At least we know it's not just Blaine that's a silly romantic."

Lindsay nods silently, gripping onto her mother's hand as Blaine nods and drops in front of Kurt, pulling him close and kissing him. The ring falls from Kurt's hand to the floor. There are obviously words between the kisses, but they don't seem important. Lindsay's sure she can make out a few 'I love you's though.

They only stay and watch for another minute or so. Things get decidedly less PG after that.


End file.
